Saturday, March 26, 2016

Breadcrumbing. I love it! It’s a great tool to have as a writer. Just to give little morsels of information that peak the reader’s interest, get them wondering what the hell’s happened to the character or will the questions throughout the story be finally answered. Hopefully good breadcrumbing will keep a reader turning the pages to find out. I know that’s what I love in a good book – an avoidance of information dumps that tell me exactly where I’m going and instead, hints that lead me down an overgrown path which means I can only see a little ahead of me.

Good breadcrumbing can definitely add suspension to the writing rather than killing it. But it also needs to happen at a good pace. Too often and the reader may as well give up now – you’ve shared everything, why would they continue? Not often enough and they’re going to get bored. Breadcrumbing needs to be as well paced as the writing. And as you get towards the end, it can change pace, happening more often, faster, faster, creating tension...bring it on!

So one of the things I loved about writing Streamer was being able to do this to a character as well. Rhi, the story’s central character, doesn’t know anything about herself apart from what she can see in a mirror. She doesn’t know her name or if she has family or why she keeps suddenly disappearing only to reappear in a new location. And she definitely doesn’t know who the cute guy asleep in the bed is when she suddenly appears in his apartment (that was a fun scene to write!)

So not only was I breadcrumbing to the readers but also to Rhi…feeding her little bits of information to keep her searching, keep her going, even when it got hard and it would have been easier for her to give into the grief of knowing nothing.

It was an interesting journey.

Streamer

How can you disappear, only to appear in a new location, and not know how it happens?

How can you have any sort of life if you can’t control when this happens?

And how can you find the answers when you don’t even know your own name?

For twenty year old Rhiannon Clarke, the last three days are all she can remember. And they have just been a series of flicking in and out of different locations with only vague memories to guide her. But as she slowly starts to build a picture of her life, the questions are getting harder. Why is this happening to her? Why does the thought of her brother fill her with unease? Why does her father’s name make her break into a cold sweat?